2004 NEW MEXICO
Below is the first draft of my, Tim and Eric's combined journal for our first photographic venture together. Whew! It's 1:10 in the morning after arriving home, I've burned CD's containing all of the images that the three of us took so that we'll all have permenant record of the entire event. Just ate a slice of pizza, uugghh! Made a nice little display of the gifts for the kdis and Carol on the kitchen table so when they wake up in the morning, they'll see their goodies (doesn't include Carol's "real" present which was shipped from Santa Fe and should arrive on Friday). Gonna do some clean-up then get to BED!

To start with, Eric forgot his daughter’s camera at his house, so we had to have the taxi driver bring us there to get it. He actually thought he left it outside and that someone would have stolen it, but he actually did leave it inside. And of course, Eric was freaking out.

Joe also forgot Eric’s extra battery and cable release.

Of course, the flight was overbooked. After getting on the plane, they informed us it was too full and we had to gate check three of our bags containing clothes and some electronics. After taking off 40 minutes late, we got to Atlanta and then made the connection to Albuquerque with some time to spare. When we got to Albuquerque however, we found out that the stewardess filled out the gate check form incorrectly and our luggage was sitting in an office in Atlanta, we think.

The airline told us they would call us as soon as the baggage arrived in Albuquerque, but since we were mobile the whole weekend, it is very likely that we would just pick up the bags on Sunday during the return trip.

Since all out navigation equipment, as well as battery chargers and other electronics that we really couldn’t do without, were in the checked luggage, we had to search for a 24-hour Walgreen’s. They had the battery charger and some other things, but not a power inverter or extension cord. So we went to find a K-Mart, but it was closed. Then we found a 24-hour Wal-Mart, but they didn’t have any GPS units in stock. But we did get me a tripod, an extension cord, and a power inverter.

Then we went to the other Wal-Mart (there are three 24-hour Wal-Mart’s within a 4 mile radius in Albuquerque). They had the Garmin, but it was locked behind a counter and one of the employees said they couldn’t be unlocked until 6AM. So we found a manager (named Kim) who was nice enough to open the case for us and sell us a Garmin and also a Leatherman. We also picked up some bananas, some extra socks and some shirts.

And then we found a Starbucks to satisfy Joe’s addiction.

Once we got set up in the car with all our electronics, we were on our way towards Monument Valley.

Along the way, we stopped to take pictures of the half-moon that was rising. It was the coldest I have been in a long while. And to boot, we did not get many good pictures. In fact, we got none.

We passed by the four corners around 2AM and continued on to Monument Valley. After an amazing sunrise, we went to the 17-mile loop driving trail through the monument valley, only to find out that it would have cost us about $30 a head. We then spent three hours photographing the surrounding area, including a small barley paved road that wound through the desert. Along this road, we spotted several wrecked cars that had been driven off the edge of a cliff and landed in the bottom of a canyon. Joe would like it to be noted that we chowed down on power bars, bananas, almonds and trail mix during this time.

Afterwards, we continued North along Route 163 through Mexican Hat, a small mountainside town right along the San Juan River. We got several good pictures of the road traveling off into the distance – it looked just like it was out of a post card.

We then continued on to Bluff where we had lunch in a nice café directly below the
Twin Rocks monument. Across the street was an old unused gas station with several old cars just parked on the lot, as well as lots of dilapidated horse drawn carriages.

Half way between Bluff and the Four Corners, we got out of the car and I laid down in the middle of the highway to take some pictures of the painted stripe disappearing off into the distance.

Then, we continued on to the famous Four Corners and I got to walk through four states in one day. To be honest, the whole thing did not impress me. It was just another big tourist trap with lots of craft booths around the whole thing. I was expecting a single survey marker in the middle of a big dirt field. What I got was a big monument in the middle of a paved parking lot surrounded by an Indian strip mall.